Julia Child
"Cooking is like love, it should be entered into with abandon or not at all"
Harriet van Horne
Julia Child was deadly serious about her roast chicken. Thomas Keller, one of the top chefs of our time, writes that a simple roast chicken is his favorite meal. Cooking shows featuring the world's most successful chefs repeatedly state that one's ability to roast a chicken is a measure of a cook. If that is the case, then I am measured monthly.
There is nothing quite like the aroma of a roasting bird wafting from the kitchen on a cold, wintery, late afternoon. Ok, the smell of cake in the oven, particularly chocolate cake, or red velvet, could top it but it also tops my thighs. A healthy meal that is at once simple and sublime. A Sunday supper that is a feast for the senses.
Chicken has been depicted in Babylonian carvings as a meal as far back as 600 BC. Thousands of years of cooks can't be all wrong. A simple Google search of roast chicken recipes brings up over 2 million entries. 2 million? There really cannot be that many ways to dress a whole bird tastefully! Big box stores, such as Costco, have turned roast chickens into big dollars. I admit, it is tempting to buy an entire 5 pound chicken already roasted for only $5.99. My raw chicken at only 3 pounds cost twice that much. Of course, mine is organic and I have have the pleasure of smelling it cook...And it simply tastes better.
It wasn't alway so easy. When I began cooking a whole bird was to be avoided at all costs. The thought of putting my hand inside Mr. Chicken was enough to give me goosebumps. In the beginning I would arm myself in rubber gloves that could protect one from nuclear waste. Trying not to gag as I preformed a proctologist's exam on my bird, I pulled out bits that were last seen during the movie Alien. I tried using tongs to remove the parts but in a traumatic moment my tongs slipped and body parts rained down on me. Nothing like a bit of gizzard hanging from your glasses to put you off chicken for a while.
Now roast chicken is a break in the cooking schedule. A real break, of course, would be suddenly being whisked out of my house and into a lovely restaurant for a leisurely meal. As my spouse has only one day off this week, and let's fess up, it is football playoff Sunday, so the only whisking around here will have to be in my own kitchen. Regularly a roast chicken makes it's way to the Sunday menu. Variations used to be experimented with, but I am hooked on Nigella Lawson's Brandy Bacony Chicken. She passes on the trussing. And after all, it is just the two of us, so why dress Mr. Chicken up? I know it cooks a bit more evenly but not evenly enough for me to bother with. And it includes bacon! Just a hint of flavoring to change things up a bit. The ten minutes of actual work give me plenty of time to work on other projects or to relax.
It is time to get out my bird prep kit. So I never got over the innards thing, so what? Armed with goggles, gloves, better tongs, and a sharp knife I am ready for whatever this bird has in him.
Chicken has been depicted in Babylonian carvings as a meal as far back as 600 BC. Thousands of years of cooks can't be all wrong. A simple Google search of roast chicken recipes brings up over 2 million entries. 2 million? There really cannot be that many ways to dress a whole bird tastefully! Big box stores, such as Costco, have turned roast chickens into big dollars. I admit, it is tempting to buy an entire 5 pound chicken already roasted for only $5.99. My raw chicken at only 3 pounds cost twice that much. Of course, mine is organic and I have have the pleasure of smelling it cook...And it simply tastes better.
It wasn't alway so easy. When I began cooking a whole bird was to be avoided at all costs. The thought of putting my hand inside Mr. Chicken was enough to give me goosebumps. In the beginning I would arm myself in rubber gloves that could protect one from nuclear waste. Trying not to gag as I preformed a proctologist's exam on my bird, I pulled out bits that were last seen during the movie Alien. I tried using tongs to remove the parts but in a traumatic moment my tongs slipped and body parts rained down on me. Nothing like a bit of gizzard hanging from your glasses to put you off chicken for a while.
Now roast chicken is a break in the cooking schedule. A real break, of course, would be suddenly being whisked out of my house and into a lovely restaurant for a leisurely meal. As my spouse has only one day off this week, and let's fess up, it is football playoff Sunday, so the only whisking around here will have to be in my own kitchen. Regularly a roast chicken makes it's way to the Sunday menu. Variations used to be experimented with, but I am hooked on Nigella Lawson's Brandy Bacony Chicken. She passes on the trussing. And after all, it is just the two of us, so why dress Mr. Chicken up? I know it cooks a bit more evenly but not evenly enough for me to bother with. And it includes bacon! Just a hint of flavoring to change things up a bit. The ten minutes of actual work give me plenty of time to work on other projects or to relax.
It is time to get out my bird prep kit. So I never got over the innards thing, so what? Armed with goggles, gloves, better tongs, and a sharp knife I am ready for whatever this bird has in him.
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